


Holmes Minor Monthly Prompts - 2020

by gardnerhill



Series: Holmes Minor Monthly Prompts [3]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Blind John, Blindness, Community: holmes_minor, Gen, M/M, Sherlock Holmes's Retirement, Sussex, Veterans Day, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:55:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 4,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22143706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: The prompts from the Dreamwidth comm Holmes Minor for the year 2020.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: Holmes Minor Monthly Prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1245431
Comments: 100
Kudos: 90





	1. A Sight For Sore Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's home. Everything else is details.

He was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life, the day he returned from war the second time. I thought my heart would burst to see him walking down the gangplank, his stick steadying his gait, until he was on English soil. Despite the crowd, he heard my voice and headed straight toward me; his voice was clotted with his own tears of joy, his hands framing my face. I wept too; he was alive, and home, a hero, and never again to return to the horrors at the front.

I examined his Victoria Cross. "Don't suppose you can tell me which Crimean cannon made this one?" he asked, and I laughed; his pawky humour was alive and well.

I'd brought our motorcar; I narrated our entire trip home, describing the passing countryside in detail he'd used in his own writing, from his lurid crime stories to his heartfelt letters.

In the cottage's drive, he turned his head everywhere, sniffing: "Your bees are welcoming me home too. You've put in more roses. It's gorgeous!"

We walked on the cliffside, I once again describing everything as he leaned on his stick.

"Oh, that poor man!" It was a passing pair of strangers.

"Pity." My voice mirrored his disgusted expression.

"Hmph! Idiots." Watson gripped his white cane. "Must be blind."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Holmes Minor January 2020 prompt: _Perfect Vision_.


	2. Detection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John Watson knows his husband's heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Holmes Minor February 2020 prompt: _Heart_. This story is a sequel to my January 2020 Holmes Minor prompt, [A Sight for Sore Eyes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22143706/chapters/52857019).

"When did you last see a doctor, Sherlock?" 

I stroked john's hair in the dark, smiling. "Just before I switched off the lights in here." 

His head turned from its repose on my breast; he could not see me in the room whether the lights were on or off, but the automatic gesture came nevertheless. "I'm serious, dammit. You have an arrhythmic heartbeat." 

I responded with amused exasperation. "One normally has an irregular heartbeat when making love to one's spouse." 

A spouse, I did not need to add, returned from his final war, one so vile and deadly that every day I thanked God that the only thing John Watson lost in France was his sight. I had already witnessed enough of John's nightmares to deduce why he too counted his blindness a mere inconvenience. While he had been in the heart of Hell I'd been dizzy with fear, light-headed with panic hourly; now the ecstasy of our reunion had me dizzy with joy, light-headed with love… Ah. 

"A rapid, strong heartbeat is associated with sexual intercourse, you stubborn ass. A skipped beat or flutter in a 66-year-old man with a past history of cocaine usage is a canary staggering off its perch in a coal mine." The hands gripping mine were shaking, and not from war-memories. 

He was right. I'd neglected my health in his absence and he would not permit that any more. He was now blind for the rest of his life, but my dear doctor saw through me as no one else ever could. 

And another chill struck me. He needed me now, to help him navigate a familiar world made strange, keep him away from the cliff's edge. If I died… 

I gripped his hands back. "Tomorrow, darling. My other doctor will see me tomorrow."


	3. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The technology has changed, but the need to tell stories is universal.

I turned to the next page of raised bumps, my eyes and brain translating with the ease of a lifelong code-cracker. 

"That was fast. You're cheating again."

"Looking at the dots rather than feeling them does not constitute 'cheating.'" I continued perusing the pages John had finished typing on his Hall Braille Writer. Writing, God be thanked, was a profession John could still pursue, once he'd acquired a new set of tools and relearned his letters all over again, by touch. 

Now I sat beside John's desk. His writing was different, and not only because it was stamped in a textured alphabet. Noble knights and virtuous damsels explored English countryside, absent-minded scientists chased dinosaurs through London, and amazed children discovered fairies in their garden. 

"Well?" John had a little smile. He was awaiting my mocking of his penchant for making up romantic twaddle; Lord knows I'd castigated him often enough for merely embroidering our cases. 

But I could still deduce. I did so. 

In the past, Watson's writing had always been grounded in the reality of his life – embellished though his detective stories were to disguise both the clients' identities and the true nature of our relationship. When I read them, I saw and recalled the case, the people, the locales he referenced. 

These works – romance, fairy tales, scientific fiction – contained absolutely nothing of his experience in the mortal Gehenna of the trenches. Here there was no gas, barbed wire, or machine guns – none of the horrors that still awoke him shouting. 

A man living in Hell does not wish to read about Hell. 

Conclusion… 

I set the pages back into order. "You are writing these stories for the soldiers who are still at the front." 

His smile warmed me to my bones. "Brilliant, Holmes. Yes. Anything to read is a godsend, and magazines get devoured. Leave is a pipe-dream for most of the men stationed there. This way I can give them an hour's respite from the trenches."

John's eyes were forever tearless from the effect of the phosphorous bomb that had taken their sight, but my own stung and filled at yet more proof that I have the honour of calling the best man in England my lover. 

I blinked the tears out and let them fall silently, lest he realise and mistake my reaction for pity. My voice was strong and careless. "So you are quite finished for now?"

John grimaced and stretched his hands and fingers. "Yes, I need a break from this damned machine. What time is it?" 

"Half two." I smiled, and made sure he heard the smile in my voice. "An hour before tea. I think we need to make up for lost time." 

He laughed. "Again?" But he was already standing, and holding out his hand for me to take. "Your doctor said this was safe. And I could use some R&R myself." 

"Come with me, soldier," I crooned in imitation of a French prostitute, and led my laughing spouse to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Holmes Minor March 2020 prompt: _Make Up_


	4. Navigation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Before a stag can stride through his domain he has to wobble to his fawn legs and fall down a few times.

Step. Tap. Step. Tap. Thud. A bark of pain and a crash. A foul oath – this vile war has clearly stepped up the quality of military profanity as well as weaponry. 

Turn from your newspaper.

A hand in the air, waving once from behind the guilty sofa. 

Turn back and stay in your seat, pretending to read the newspaper as dragging and groaning sounds indicate that the swearing man is acquiring his footing once again.

# 

Birdsong. Humming bees. Tapping stick over by the garden. A small pained sound – probably stubbed his foot on one of the stones bordering the rose beds. Crunch of gravel underfoot, a cry of distress at lost balance, a much louder crunch. Groaning. 

A hand in the air, waving once before being used to push the owner up from the faceplant on the garden path.

Return to taking notes on hive number two. Sternly order your heart to stop panicking. You'd have made a dreadful parent. 

# 

A barked shin in the library. A waved hand.

A half-stumble down the staircase. One hand in a white-knuckled grip on the rail, the other waving once before rubbing the bruised knee.

A full face-plant against a bedpost. The hand not clamped around the nose waves. 

# 

Two weeks. Three. A full month since his return. 

# 

Step step step step step step. Tap tap. John unerringly navigates the stairs, crosses the parlour and swerves effortlessly into his seat at the breakfast table. 

Crunch crunch crunch tap tap tap. John makes his way through the garden at his usual walking pace – with an occasional oath at a thorn-scratch as he stops to smell the roses.

In the main bedroom John rests his white cane by his bedside table, stows his shed clothing in the laundry hamper, gropes toward the bathroom, and returns from his ablutions to join his spouse under the covers. The bruises are fading. 

Holmes holds him. "I believe I'm ready for the next step. And I promise I know a waved hand from a hand flung out asking for assistance." 

Watson kisses him. "Good soldier." 

Tomorrow, now that he has regained his body memory of the cottage, the blind man will re-acquaint himself with the path along the seacliff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Holmes Minor April 2020 prompt: _Waving_.


	5. Straw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trauma can be triggered by a little thing.

I'd accustomed myself to the sounds of regular thumping and crashing as Watson relearned his way around the cottage and grounds without benefit of the eyesight he'd lost in the war. The first time I'd helped him up had also been the last, as he snarled that he was going to goddamn do this without my goddamn help thank you very goddamn much. (My only rejoinder was that I would not accept any invitations to tea with Vicar Brown for at least 6 months or until Watson had trained his tongue away from frontline vernacular, and left him to his navigation.) My returned spouse had acquired a splendid array of bruises and welts but he was regaining familiarity with our world. 

But one day, nearly three weeks after John's return from the front, a crash from upstairs was accompanied by a splintering sound and a cry of anguish from John. Even as I ran up the stairs, I deduced what had happened before I laid eyes on it. 

The model sailing ship that had graced my room since 1885, the one John had painstakingly carved and painted and strung only to present it upon my birthday that year to my utter surprise, the vessel that had survived all the years in Baker Street and the move to Sussex, lay on the floor where John's misstep had jolted the shelf upon which it had rested. 

John was on the floor too, fingers grazing over the ship's tangled lines and splintered wood, and he was shaking. Again a cry of grief arose from him. 

I knew all the correct things to say - _It's easily mended, it's only a trifle, we've weathered far worse_ \- but I was wise enough to say none of them. This had only as much to do with that broken ship as the straw has to do with the camel's spine. 

He knew I was there, he'd have heard me run up the stairs to make sure he wasn't badly hurt. I sank down next to John and rested my hands on his shaking shoulders from behind. Again that cry of grief from the bowed back, the tearless sightless eyes, the hands buried in the flotsam of his own labor of love. "Go ahead," was all I said. 

I held John as he wailed for the loss of his sight and battered the little ship to kindling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Holmes Minor June 2020 prompt: _Vessel_. This story is another part of the post-war Sussex series in this year's Holmes Minor 2020 offerings.


	6. Metronome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's something about this rhythm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Holmes Minor July 2020 prompt: _Punctuate_.

There is a new rhythm to our lives, and I cannot say I am sorry for it despite its origin. 

John's footsteps around the house, in the garden and along the cliff are now punctuated with the steady tap or crunch or thump of his white cane. 

John's office resounds with the rhythmic clunking sound of his Braille writer turning out more of his romantic fiction. 

In the parlour, John finally has the time and inclination to settle in front of our piano and send simple scales and tunes into the air, learning by ear what he could never read from sheet-music when he still had his sight. The music itself is unremarkable; the beat it carries is soothing beyond words. 

I don't know if he is deliberately doing this, or if it is done subconsciously. 

But after two years of stillness in this cottage, two years of panic attacks at the thought of what he was facing in France, two years of terror that this silence would remain forever?

Every incidental sound John makes now is an echo of the same glorious rhythm that pillows my head and punctuates my sleep every night: the steady beat of his heart.


	7. Inspiration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A celebrated American pays a visit to the Sussex cottage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Holmes Minor August 2020 prompt: _Greatest Passion._ Work something into your fic that either a character is passionate about, or you the author are passionate about.

This meeting had not gone at all as Holmes had envisioned. It was so much better.

The two visiting American women – one in her late 30s and the other her late 50s – had been at home in two minutes, because both were avid readers of Watson's work. They'd immediately started chattering away about their shared craft, as the younger of the two women was a prolific writer of stories, essays and books herself. They made each other laugh over the foibles of their shared circumstances ("I was bruised all over for three weeks, learning how to walk around my own house!" "I didn't know sea water had salt in it till it knocked me over!") 

But what they talked about, mostly, was socialism. Better pay for everyone, an end to child labour, equal pay for women, suffrage, racial equality, better lives for poor and exploited workers. The younger of the two women was clearly enthused by the subject, having had a lifetime of perspective about human differences, and her joy in sharing that knowledge shone from her face. But what bemused Holmes was Watson's equally enthusiastic agreement with sentiments his younger Victorian-era self would have scoffed at as anarchy or disloyalty to the Crown. More had changed than the subject of his spouse's writings while they'd been parted by the war. 

One topic was pacifism. "I'm learning that last one late in life too, after the horrors of the front," Watson sighed. "So much I thought I knew, so much I grew up believing, is so much poison gas." The younger woman's hand rested on his face, fingers lightly touching his lips; "Better learned late than never," she replied.

The women could not stay long as they were on a goodwill tour of English hospitals; they thanked their hosts for the tea, and departed on a tandem bicycle back to their hotel room in town, the older woman in front. 

"I'd suspected they were wearing bloomers," Watson said as they picked up the tea things. "Splendid for pedaling. What a mind Miss Keller has!" 

"Indeed." 

Watson laughed as he carried the teapot to the sink, his other hand brushing landmarks to help navigate across the parlour carpet and then the wooden floor of the kitchen. "You'd expected an inspirational speech from her, didn't you?"

"Not on the subject of factory safety regulations, no." The dry candour in Holmes' voice set them both laughing. 

"I'm so grateful you invited her here, dear. I've been neglecting my non-fiction writing for too long, but I have been inspired in truth by this visit. Surely a socialist newspaper or two around here would accept my own essays on the plight of the trench soldiers, and a war veteran's support of suffrage."

"I'm sure they would." Holmes kissed his spouse's temple as he passed him to put away the honey pot. "But, John, please use a _nom de plume_ or the editors will only want more crime stories." 

"No fear – I've learned that one already!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Further Note:** If all you know about Helen Keller is the 7-year-old blind and deaf girl learning to spell W-A-T-E-R in "Miracle Worker," you're missing out on the history of one of the most passionately liberal minds of the 20th century. The adult Helen Keller was a socialist who spoke and wrote about racial equality, suffrage, economic justice, and many other similar topics. During WWI she visited wounded soldiers in hospitals to show newly-maimed or blinded men that their lives were not over. (Yes, Helen Keller is a topic about which I have a passionate enthusiasm.) By the way, she wasn't consoling Watson or coming on to him; Helen "listened" to conversation by resting her hand on the speaker's cheek and her fingertips on their lips.


	8. Piece of Cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Birthdays are better with cake.

Of the two of us Holmes always had been the better cook, his lifetime of training in inedible chemistry having made him expert at kitchen craft. Now I was permanently relegated to cook's helper, as so much of cooking is visual: "It wouldn't do for me to measure out three perfect cups of washing powder instead of flour by mistake."

But there was nothing wrong with my arms, and I was happy to help my spouse by whipping the egg whites and then carefully folding them into the rest of the batter in the second bowl. Even in this raw state I could smell vanilla, honey, a whisper of cinnamon in the mix. The pans were ready, already perfectly buttered and papered by me.

The icing followed in the same way; Sherlock measured and I mixed. Judging the amount of icing by the feel against the spoon, I smoothed it over one layer and then the second, settled atop. I knew it must look something like a child's mud-pie, but we didn't care.

Our honey cake was delicious, and graced our teatime that day. I could taste where there was too much icing here and not enough there, a few spots where beaten egg-white was imperfectly blended. We laughed, and Sherlock agreed when I said, "The next one will be better."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the August 6, 2020 birthday of Holmes Minor's esteemed helmsmaiden **scfrankles**. Many Happy Returns!


	9. The Speckled Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cottage receives a visitor.

John's walk in the garden had halted; I did not hear his footsteps on the gravel. Unconcerned, I continued taking notes at Hive Box D. But when I heard a soft throaty birdcall, curiosity sent me to see what he was doing.

John's back was to mine and he was crouched down on the path, unmoving. At my approach (he'd heard and possibly felt my footsteps on the lawn), he held his hand out behind him, palm up, like a policeman halting traffic. I obligingly stopped; only then did John beckon with his fingers to have me come forward, soundlessly; he continued making a startlingly-realistic pigeon-coo. Smiling, I glided up and rested my fingertips on his shoulder to announce my presence, looking past him. 

I was not surprised to see a pigeon standing on the garden walkway near our raspberry bramble, regarding us both. 

John sniffed. "You like our raspberries, do you?" I laughed soundlessly, for the red-stained beak and half-pecked fruit near the bird told me the truth of Watson's olfactory deduction. 

I recognised the markings. I kept my voice low. "It's one of George Tobias' birds from his dovecote. White, with blue-grey speckles all over and a single dark spot over the left eye." 

"Beautiful creature," my blind spouse said. "Does Tobias race them or eat them?" 

"Race."

"Which means it would carry a note back, wouldn't it?" 

"It would indeed." I grinned. 

"Then if you'd oblige me." 

A bit of crumbled biscuit and an orchard basket later, I had caught our squawking visitor and stowed it safely in a fishing creel. "Now for the note," I said as we headed into the house. 

John grinned. "Let me write it – it'll add a bit of mystery." 

We decided on a brief message ("Found in our garden. Returning. Hyacinth Lodge") and John scrolled a fresh piece of paper into his Braille writer. 

I remembered that flawless pigeon-call. "You've gained an appreciation of _Columbidae_ since leaving London." Watson's only remarks about the ubiquitous city birds had been profanity when one of them soiled a prized hat. 

"Magnificent creatures, pigeons. Brave and intelligent." John thumped out the message nearly as quickly has he had once used a regular typewriter. "They carried messages at the front. Flew through gunfire and bombs, never stopping until they were dead or their task completed. I shall never call a cowardly man pigeon-livered again. Here we are."

I rolled up the lumpy note and bound it to our small postman's leg, and released the speckled bird at the doorway to fly home. 

When I turned around, I saw John with the fishing basket still slung across him. "I'm going to try my hand at raspberry-picking this afternoon, before the birds have them all. No, go on with your hives – I want to see if I can collect them by touch and smell." 

John's hands got bramble-scratched, but his berries were flawlessly ripe; we brought them to George Tobias' when the pigeon's owner invited us to tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Holmes Minor September 2020 prompt: _Pigeon_.


	10. Before the Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Couples' costumes are hardly a new idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set in the same series as my other 2020 Holmes Minor stories, which take place in Sussex after Watson returns from WWI.

"Old Pew." 

"I'm not dressing as a pirate to accompany you."

"Spoilsport. Then what about something classical? Tiresias, or Oedipus? Of course that would require you portraying Antigone."

"Not everyone has had access to the Oedipus Cycle, in or out of college. The only way we could ensure that all of Harold's lads would recognize us at his Hallowe'en party is if I dressed as the Sphinx."

"Can't have that. I'm far too fond of your nose to remove or flatten it for the full effect." 

A surprising number of my old disguises had survived the trip to Sussex; we pored over the trunk's contents in the cottage's lumber room. Alas, most of them were in revolting shape, still grimy or with traces of decades-old greasepaint or blood. Many simply would no longer fit either of us. (Between leisure and good country cooking at one end and my no longer using cocaine at the other. I have gained flesh in my old age; this not only prevents recognition from the public looking for a stick-thin Sherlock Holmes but also provides a good deal of satisfaction for my husband – for so I must interpret his contented sigh when he winds his arms around my girth when we retire for the night.) John couldn't see the costumes, but his grimaces at handling the deteriorated fabric mirrored mine. There would be no help here. 

Then Watson's face lit up and he snapped his fingers. "I've got it! Homer."

A well-known blind writer. How absurdly simple. 

"Brilliant, old man." I brought his dusty hand up to my face so he could feel me beaming. 

My spouse grinned as well. "It also has the advantage of simplicity. Greek-style togas are merely a few old bedsheets away. You will look delicious in a boy's tunic, leading me about." 

I snorted. "A sixty-five-year-old man in a Greek boy's tunic will indeed be a sight, but 'delicious' is not the word I'd use."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Holmes Minor October 2020 prompt: _Dressing Up_.


	11. Monday Morning (November)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes a cold drizzly morning walk is worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set in the same series as my other 2020 Holmes Minor stories, which take place in Sussex after Watson returns from WWI.

Sherlock proposed that we go for a walk after breakfast, rather than turn to the late-autumnal chores that normally occupied us at this time of the year. (I could still help my spouse prepare his hives for winter; it was a little less nerve-wracking now that I could not see the bees flying around us during the work, and I was getting better at gauging their distances by sound.) 

"A walk?" said I. The weather was cold and drizzly – typical November in East Sussex – and not the best day for a casual stroll. But I knew my spouse; there was a reason for this.

More pride filled me as we headed eastward along the cliff's edge. I'd become surefooted on the dirt and occasional stones on the pathway – and when I did occasionally fall, my oaths were their pre-war "Blast!" or "Bother!" again. I barely used my cane to make my way now. Sherlock felt the same way, for I sensed the vast pleasure emanating from him at my progress, if his humming of a favorite Tchaikovsky piece was an indication. 

The cold drizzle pressed around me and on my face like a million microscopic raindrops. "Can you see a da– dratted thing? It feels foggy." 

My husband laughed. "There is some visibility, but not far. I can see the path ahead, but most of the sea is cloaked." Joviality in his voice. 

"Sherlock Holmes." I tried to sound stern, but I was in an anticipatory mood myself. "You sound as if you are about to make me a gift of the entire coast of Dover." 

"It's better than that, Johnny-lad." 

Oh my Lord. Something bright stirred inside of me too. What – what else could put him in such a giddy, boyish mood, reckless enough to dare a bedroom name in the open air? …Oh dear God. What we'd all prayed for so long. Did I dare hope?

At the next rise, we stopped. "Here, I think." He chuckled. "Almost time." 

Time. It was late morning when we walked out. It must be nearly eleven o'clock. Heh. Eleventh day of November, eleventh month. Eleven…

I heard a a church bell ringing. But it was not tolling the hours but ringing madly, as if for a wedding. But if so then everyone was marrying because other bells pealed around us. Alfriston, Eastbourne, Brighton, Hassock, St. Leonards – from every town in earshot we heard joyous caroling from every church bell-tower. 

My heart exploded in a ball of sunlight. Mycroft must have told him. "Oh sweet Jesus." 

"Yes, darling." Sherlock's voice was thick with tears, but his voice was as joyous as mine. "The war is over."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Holmes Minor November 2020 prompt: _Bells_.


	12. The First Norell, or Mewwy Chwistmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One drawback to using a new alphabet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Holmes Minor December 2020 prompt: _Palindrome_.

"The sounds of the season began as people sang The First Norell." I stopped my reading aloud of John's holiday story and stared at the manuscript. Yes. "Norell." 

"Oh no. I did it again!" Watson buried his face in his hands, laughing. "Every time. Every time! At least it doesn't say 'Mewwy Chwistmas." 

I laughed at that. "Your editor would think you were trying to sound like a disgustingly saccharine small child." 

"Here's the problem, old fellow." My husband scrolled a fresh piece of paper into his Braille writer. He thumped the keys five times, and pulled the sheet out. "In Braille, the word 'wider' is a palindrome." 

I saw what he meant when I saw the word:

[](https://gardnerhill.dreamwidth.org/file/1181.png)

"And I keep mixing the W and R when I write!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Further Note:** The Braille alphabet was created by blind Frenchman Louis Braille, and as there is no W in French there was none in the original alphabet; English Braille turned a reversed-R into the W.


	13. Drinking Stars (New Year's Eve)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New Year's Eve 1918.

December 31 was foggy and cold, and Sherlock Holmes blessed the weather; it would be too overcast for fireworks anywhere near their cottage. Watson had smiled when he'd been out with Holmes for their walk before supper, for he'd felt the close damp of the fog droplets. He didn't say anything but his relief was palpable. A soldier home from the front had no desire for loud booming noises in the sky. 

Poignance was mixed with relief and gratitude for both men at this milestone, so close behind the end of the war. In a few weeks it would be a full year since John had lost his sight to a phosphorous bomb at the front. He'd accepted his blindness for the most part, rapidly learning to write in the raised Braille type and relearning household duties that did not rely on eyesight. But his shell-shock could and did catch him unawares (so far the only casualty was the model ship he'd built in the 1880s that he'd pummeled to splinters one day). They had therefore declined Harold Stackhurst's party invitation in favour of a quiet night at home. 

Dinner was lamb stew, which they had made together (Sherlock biting his lips to stay silent while John had methodically chopped the meat and sliced the vegetables); the meal ended with honey cake, a joint creation that had improved much from their first attempt in August. After supper the gramophone had supplied music for dancing (Sherlock leading, as always, around a parlour whose dimensions John now knew by sound and touch). 

Watson yawned fiercely when they sat on the sofa to rest after their exertions. "I shan't stay awake till midnight, dear." 

"Nor I." Holmes took deep breaths, well-warmed from the waltzes and tangos. "We're neither of us young. And it's a good deal harder to stay up all night without cocaine." 

John laughed and patted his husband's pot-belly. "You've traded that for this. A wise bargain."

"Then let us greet 1919 now." Holmes kissed his spouse. "We can retire after one more formality." He rose and went to the back door. The creak of the outer shed door. Why was he there? It was bitterly cold out now and … Ah. A clinking sound. There was no room in their icebox. 

More clinking as his spouse returned. "I am sure there is at least one thing about France that you will not mind having here tonight." 

Watson grinned. "Not in the least." He took the offered glass and did not react to the pop of the Champagne cork. He smelled the effervescence and heard the sparkling beverage flowing into their glasses. "What did the monk Dom Perignon say when he discovered this wine?"

"'I'm drinking stars.'" Clink. "Happy New Year, darling." 

"And may the next year be better than the last." 

He could feel the light inside him. Laughing, he stroked his husband's bristly cheek. "Bring the bottle upstairs, Sherlock. You've made me taste stars. Now make me feel stars."


End file.
